Cleaning the item master before you count

What decides how long a count takes is often not the amount of goods on the shelves but the number of lines on the count list. Every duplicate, obsolete or wrongly named item is a line that someone on the team looks for on the shelves, fails to find and finally marks as zero. Such lines cost time and also create false variances. Here is a practical plan for tidying the item list before the count.

Four kinds of problem record

When an item list is cleaned, you usually meet these four groups:

• Duplicate records: the same product was opened as two separate items under a Turkish, Russian or Uzbek name, sometimes only with a spelling difference.
• Dormant records: the balance is zero and the item has not appeared on any document for a long time.
• Vague names: size, colour or model is missing; a name like "fabric blue" is a line that does not say which product it points to on the shelf.
• Missing fields: the unit, conversion factor, barcode or code is blank.

All lead to the same result: the counter cannot match the line with the product on the shelf, and guesses.

Cleaning steps

1. Export the item list from 1C to Excel together with the balance and the date of the last movement.
2. Mark items with a zero balance and no movement for a period you choose (for example 18 months) as archive candidates.
3. Convert names to lower case and trim spaces, then sort the list by name and by supplier code; similar names that sit next to each other are duplicate candidates.
4. Decide on every candidate pair: is it really the same product, or two separate products that differ only in colour or size?
5. Write a naming rule: product type, model, colour or shade, size, with every item named in the same order.
6. Fill in the items whose unit or conversion factor is blank, or hand them to the person responsible as a task.

Step three is more a matter of the eye than of a filter, but even a fifteen-minute scan finds a surprising number of duplicates, above all items opened in Turkish at head office and in Russian locally.

What to do and not to do before the count

Do not try to merge duplicate items that carry a balance before the count. How a merge affects past documents depends on your system, so ask your accountant and whoever looks after 1C. The safe work before the count is:

• take items with no balance and no movement off the count list, setting them aside as "archive candidates" without deleting them from the system;
• print the duplicate candidates next to each other so that the count team looks for both in the same place;
• decide on merging after the count, on the basis of the count result.

The counted quantities of duplicates are added up afterwards. The physical product is one; until the merge, a balance split in two shows as two lines in the variance table and should be read as one.

Example: from 2,400 lines to 1,950

In an illustrative factory warehouse the item list has 2,400 lines. The review finds that 310 items have a zero balance and have not moved for 18 months, and that 140 items repeat another line. The count list falls to 2,400 − 310 − 140 = 1,950 lines, 450 fewer. At an average of two minutes per line (finding, counting, writing), 450 × 2 = 900 minutes, which is 15 hours of team time. Part of that goes on confirming that the zero-balance items really are not on the shelves, so the saving is less than 15 hours; but a shorter list also leaves less room for error.

The clean-up also helps after the count: the same duplicates will not cause trouble at the next one.

Making the clean-up last

• Limit the right to open new items to one or two people.
• Before a new item is opened, check whether the list already holds the same product, and search according to the naming rule.
• Put mandatory fields on the item card: main unit, conversion factor, barcode or code.
• Scan for dormant items every six months.

In short

A short, clean item list speeds up the count and reduces false variances. During the count StockSystem marks records that belong to the same product by code, barcode and appearance and gives you a list of duplicated items; the decision to merge them, and posting the correction in the system, stays with you.